by Anton Bridge

TOKYO (Reuters) – Toshiba left the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Wednesday after 74 years of trading and a decade of upheaval and scandals that tarnished the reputation of one of Japan’s biggest companies.

The conglomerate was bought by a group of investors led by private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners (JIP), which also includes financial services company Orix, electricity company Chubu Electric Power and chipmaker Rohm .

This takeover, worth 14 billion dollars (12.8 billion euros), puts Toshiba back in the hands of a Japanese group after years of struggle against foreign activist investors who paralyzed the battery manufacturer, chips and nuclear and defense equipment.

Toshiba “will now take a big step toward a new future with a new shareholder,” the company said in a statement.

Managing Director Taro Shimada, who will remain in post after the takeover, is expected to refocus the group on high-margin digital services.

The company needs to move away from low-margin businesses and develop stronger business strategies for its cutting-edge technologies, according to Ulrike Schaede, a business professor at the University of California, San Diego.

Toshiba has already started negotiating the switch and teamed up with Rohm to invest $2.7 billion to jointly produce microprocessors.

Regardless, the Japanese government will closely monitor the situation of the company, which employs around 106,000 people and works in sectors considered essential to national security.

(Report by Anton Bridge, with the support of Miho Uranaka and David Dolan, Corentin Chappron, edited by Blandine Hénault)

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